abolition of caste
distinctions and other Hindu influences that had crept back into
Sikhism.
In its essence a puritan movement, there was unquestionably a
nationalist side to it which tended to render it suspect in the eyes of
many Punjab officials, and these suspicions were heightened by the
_Gadr_ conspiracy fomented in the second year of the war by a number of
Sikhs, who returned from Canada bitterly estranged from British rule by
the anti-Asiatic policy of the Dominion and still more by the fiery
eloquence of Indian revolutionaries in German pay. But against the
disloyalty of a small section must be weighed the loyal war services of
the vast majority of Sikhs, and the Punjab Government proudly boasted at
the time that there were 80,000 Sikhs serving in the army, a proportion
far higher than in the case of any other community. It was doubtless
partly in recognition of such war services that in the reforms scheme
they were given the benefit of "community" representation in the new
Councils on the same lines as the Mahomedans. But with a tenacious
memory of the language used years ago by Lord Minto in reply to
Mahomedan representations, they still complain that the historical
importance and actual influence of their community have not received
nearly as full a measure of consideration. Unfortunately, bitterness was
revived by the large number of Sikhs amongst General Dyer's victims at
Jallianwala, most of them, according to the Sikh version, innocent
country-folk, who had come into Amritsar on that day because it happened
to be a Sikh religious holiday, and had merely strayed into the Bagh out
of harmless and ignorant curiosity.
The puritan movement struck a dangerous course when it addressed itself
to the recovery of the Sikh shrines which it held to have passed into
the possession of unorthodox and corrupt Mahunts, faithless both to
their religious and temporal trust. Considerable success was achieved by
the exercise, it was affirmed, of mere moral pressure, though not
perhaps always without a display or threat of material pressure behind
it in the event of moral pressure proving inadequate. Amongst others,
the incumbent of the Golden Temple at Amritsar, the most sacred of all
Sikh shrines, was constrained to make a public confession of his
wrongdoings and resign his office into the hands of a Reformers'
Committee. Next to Amritsar in wealth and sanctity came Nankhanda Saheb
with a Mahunt to whom the Reformers im
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